Marlow And Kurtz example essay topic
He is used as a mask, per say, so Conrad can enter the story and tell it out of his own logical mind. He longs to see Kurtz, in hope's of appreciating all that Kurtz finds appealing about the jungle. Marlow does not get a chance to see him until Kurtz is so diseased he looks more like death itself than a person. There were no good looks or health. In the story Marlow remarks that Kurtz resembles an animated image of death carved into ivory...
Like Marlow, Kurtz is seen as an honorable man to many admirers; but he is also a thief, murderer, persecutor, and he allows himself to be worshipped almost as a god... Both Kurtz and Marlow had good intentions to seek, yet Kurtz seems a omniscient being lacking of basic integrity or sense of responsibility. In the end the form one person. Marlow and Kurtz are the light and dark selves of one person.
Meaning each one is what the other might have been. Every person that Marlow meets on his venture contributes to the plot as wel as the overall theme of the story. Kurtz is the violent devil explained at the beginning of the story. It was his ability to control men through fear and and adoration that led Marlow to signify this. Throughout the story Conrad builds an unhealthy darkness that never allows the reader to forget the focus of the story. At every turn he sees evil in the land and in most of the people.
Every image was depressing and blank. The deadly Congo winds itself through the jungle connecting its tributaries. It seems that Conrad added this as a significant part of the story. It seems as if the river itself was the only source of good and life in the jungle.
The setting of these adventurous and moral quests is the great jungle. As a symbol the jungle encloses all, and in the heart of the journey Marlow enters the dark cavern of his won heart. It even becomes and image of a vast coffin of evil, in which Kurtz dies but from which Marlow emerges spiritually reborn. The manager, in charge of three stations in the jungle, feels Kurtz is a threat to his position.
Marlow sees how the manager is purposely delaying the relay of supplies and help to Kurtz. He hopes he will die of neglect. This is where the inciting moment of the story lies. Should the company in Belgium find out the truth about Kurtz's success as a ivory dealer, they would undoubtedly elevate him to the position of manager. The manager's insidious and pretending nature opposes all truth. This story can be the result of two completely different aspects of Conrad life.
One being his journey into the Congo. Conrad had a childhood wish associated with a disapproved childhood ambition to go to sea. Thus the adventurous Conrad and the Moralist Conrad may have collided. Heart of Darkness is a record of things seen and done. Then is was ivory that poured out the heart of darkness. Now maybe it is Marijuana and Cocaine.
There were so many actual events and facts in the story that it was more of an eye opener to the past than entertaining. His confrontations as a man are both dangerous and enlightening. Perhaps man's inhumanity to man is his greatest sin. Since the story closes with a lie, maybe Conrad was discovering and analyzing the two aspects of truth.
Real truth and False truth, both of which, are ever present in the human soul.